I notice that here again he uses the term “conspiracy theorist,” or this time, “paranoid conspiracy theorist.” The person that sent this to me related that back in the 1990s, he was called a “conspiracy theorist” by Chip Berlet for questioning Outcome Based Education, which many thought was favored by big business as a means of inculcating compliance in future workers. This was apparently considered by Berlet to be a paranoid conspiracy theory originating from the right. And I thought we were supposed to be taking a structural view. Business roundtables are structures, but they do have real people meeting in real rooms, breathing together. Berlet would have us not question their goals, it seems. Even with HR 1955, he subtly promotes a view that questioning the government is inherently paranoid and “conspiratist.”

======
Below is the first few paragraphs of a larger post that offers a
comentary on the issues. The link to the full text is at the end.

-Chip Berlet

===

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism?

Who doesn’t want to prevent terrorism and violence? Not many folks I
would imagine. So why am I in a snit over the federal legislative
proposal H.R. 1955: the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2007″? Because it is a $22 million foot in the door that
could lead to the same type of government surveillance abuse that was
denounced by Congress, the media, and activists in the 1970s.

Liberal congressional representatives apparently were sucker punched by
the language; and oddly forgetful of past government intelligence
gathering abuses. It could easily turn into another privatized

federally-funded giant slush fund for politically-connected hacks.

Anyone who remembers the infamous FBI Counterintelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) will recall how compiling files on the ideological leanings of
dissenters opened the door to a systematic campaign of illegal
surveillance and disruption, spawned tens of millions of pages of spy files,
and even led to the murders of political activists-primarily people of
color. Just read the text of the legislation, and these claims of
potential abuse seem absurd. Have I become a paranoid conspiracy theorist? I
don’t think so, but explaining why takes some doing. But isn’t
protecting our civil liberties worth a little effort?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/26/85326/401

In reply to my post Reply to “Nerd World Order” about the page “The 9/11 Conspiracy guys are retarded”, I’ve been challenged to look at and respond to two technical papers, one of which is quite long, so they’ll take me quite a while to go through.

I’ve decided to defer doing that for now, and instead, give priority to looking at non-technical issues. Over the next week or two, I’ll be reviewing the evidence presented on the website 911proof.com. After that I’ll post a summary of what I think is the best non-technical evidence I’ve seen so far.

In the meantime, I would appreciate it very much if you could look at my comments # 3, 5, and 17 above. I would be very interested in your response to comment # 5. Also I would appreciate your response to my post Taking responsibility for counteracting bigotry in our midst and the other blog posts of mine linked therein.

You might also want to take a look at the blog Crimes of the State, which contains lots of non-technical evidence and appears, at least at first glance, to be quite sound. (I have yet to explore its claims and evidence in detail, though.)

As for the technical issues, I still have not yet come across a good answer regarding the straight-down collapse of WTC 7, though I’ve looked around at what many different “debunkers” have to say about WTC 7. (On the other hand, the demolition arguments regarding WTC 1 and 2 involve matters more complex and quantitative, and I’m not as sure about them, at least not yet.)

When we build uncritical alliances with bigots it reflects badly on the movements we try to build.

It is one thing to recognize that there are bigots in any movement. It is quite another to pretend they do not exist; to encourage the spreading of their toxic ideas; and to appear to build their credibility without reservations.

I share your concern about the spread of bigoted ideas within the antiwar movement and related movements such as the 9/11 Truth movement. Please see my blog post Taking responsibility for counteracting bigotry in our midst, and see also the blog posts of mine that are linked within that post.

Sorry it is taking me a lot longer than expected to put together everything that I had indended to invite you to comment on. It will probably take me several more weeks to put together an organized collection of evidence regarding 9/11.

In the meantime, I would very much appreciate a response from you to comment #5 here in this thread.

>>>I know someone who used to be a LaRouchie, and harbors some misogynistic and homophobic views that I find both ludicrous and appalling. Maybe he got those views from LaRouche, or liked LaRouche because he had those views. Maybe Tarpley still holds such views. So what? That’s not what he writes about in his book.

So we are building a movement based on what principles of unity? Misogynistic and homophobic views are OK? Antisemitism is OK? What else is OK? Do we pay no attention to who our allies are?

Can we build a broad antiwar movement with tactical alliances without debasing ourselves by becoming apologists for bigotry? When we build uncritical alliances with bigots it reflects badly on the movements we try to build.

It is one thing to recognize that there are bigots in any movement. It is quite another to pretend they do not exist; to encourage the spreading of their toxic ideas; and to appear to build their credibility without reservations.

Many of Tarpley’s articles written while in the LaRouche group were really whacko; and often involved invoking historic antisemitic claims about Jewish bankers…the Merchants of Venice. Why look to Tarpley for any type of leadership? He helped build up the LaROuche group–notorious antisemites and neofascists. What type of alliance is this?

Tarpley talks about a secret government backed by Wall Street and City of London. Is this really so surprising after Iran-Contra, BCCI, etc.? Treating this as an anti-Semitist’s code for “Jew bankers” serves to make off-limits a lot of analysis of obvious power centers. One would expect a leftist “structuralist” intellectual to have lots to say about this.

Three problems here:

1) Although people who complain about “the banking system” aren’t necessarily Jew-haters themselves, some of the allegations popular among critics of “the banking system” are indeed derived from anti-Jewish propaganda and, apparently, not from any reputable source. (An example is the claim that the Federal Reserve System makes huge profits that go into the pockets of the owners of member banks. See my post Some of the rhetoric against the Federal Reserve System. I subsequently learned that one of the sources for the more extreme claims about the Federal Reserve System is Eustace Mullins, a notorious Jew-hater.) While this doesn’t mean that the banking system is above criticism, it does mean any and all claims about the banking system, including some of the more widely-circulated claims, should be double-checked very carefully, not repeated uncritically.

2) I personally think that we should be more concerned about the military-industrial complex than about the banking system. Although bankers do profit from war too, they profit only indirectly, via the military-industrial complex, primarily. Banks do not depend on war, or the threat of war, in the way that the military-industrial complex does. Banks are quite capable of making huge profits in peacetime too.

3) From a leftist perspective, the source of many of the world’s ills is the concentration of wealth in the hands of a relatively few people. The banking system is only one aspect of this, and is not the crux of the problem.

Chip Berlet, on the other hand, offers nothing but character assassination, just as Tarpley states in his book, and does not address obvious facts about 9/11 other than to say he’s not convinced.

I know someone who used to be a LaRouchie, and harbors some misogynistic and homophobic views that I find both ludicrous and appalling. Maybe he got those views from LaRouche, or liked LaRouche because he had those views. Maybe Tarpley still holds such views. So what? That’s not what he writes about in his book.

Mr. Berlet would have me apply an analysis from queer theory or ecology to 9/11, or just ignore it. That’s absurd. You apply the intellectual tools that fit the problem, and in the case of 9/11, the synthetic terror theory obviously applies. That doesn’t mean it applies to all social, political, and economic problems, and it doesn’t negate other intellectual tools where they apply.

I should thank Mr. Berlet for convincing me to buy Tarpley’s book. The LaRouche past has always made me hesitant to read the book, but so far, I see that was a big mistake. If Tarpley is like LaRouche and wants to be the Great Leader when the current corrupt system implodes, I’ll deal with that then. What I won’t do is ignore his good analysis because he made a homophobic remark 20 years ago, or because ZMag wants to avoid being criticized by Sean Hannity, Bill Clinton, or Noam Chomsky.

Perhaps ZMag wants some space to criticize Israel’s occupation of Palestine, or perhaps ZMag is just too cowardly to address 9/11 in a serious manner. Regardless, Tarpley is right — the left is bankrupt when it comes to 9/11, both intellectually and morally. That makes them complicit in my book.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/09/365580.shtml

Tarpley talks about a secret government backed by Wall Street and City of London. Is this really so surprising after Iran-Contra, BCCI, etc.? Treating this as an anti-Semitist’s code for “Jew bankers” serves to make off-limits a lot of analysis of obvious power centers. One would expect a leftist “structuralist” intellectual to have lots to say about this. And leftist intellectuals talk about murderous covert actions of the U.S. government — why the refusal to consider false flag terror when it so obviously highly effective and profitable?

I just now finished writing War games, etc.: A preliminary overview of Mark Robinowitz’s evidence about 9/11, in which I discuss some of his assertions.

Everyone, from henceforth, instead of making general statements about someone’s evidence, please address specific issues and raise specific objections.

Anyhow, a further reply to Chip Berlet: I would be interested to hear some specific comments from you about the distinction I’ve made between full-blown “conspiracism” (as per the definition of yours that I quoted) and theories (justified or not) about possible instances of government wrongdoing. To lump these two very different kinds of things together under a label like “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracism” is, in my opinion, prejudicial and propagandistic. What do you think?

Whether he is a paid agent or not is irrelevant.

That he now advocates an investigation is merely a ploy to attempt to escape the truth which is ineluctably closing in on him.

I have heard his interview on Alternative Radio with David Barsamian where they frantically used every propaganda ploy they could think of to try to slime ALL of the 911 Truth movement (not just the crazies, which are found in ANY movement).

Thanks for your comments.

I’m glad to hear that you support a new investigation of 9/11.

Sometime within the next week or so, I’ll post here a collection of links to what I think is some of the best evidence for 9/11 being an inside job. I would be interested in your specific comments on those specific pieces of evidence. I think there IS some real evidence, although I also think there is plenty of bogus “evidence” as well.

As for Bilderberg, I do agree with you that “any discussion of the Bilderberg Group needs to briefly discuss and reject the claims of neofascists and antisemites.” I meant to hint at this with my brief statement that I don’t believe the Bilderbergers micromanage the world to the extent that some people think. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear.

I certainly agree with you about confronting those who bring bigoted ideology into progressive movements for social change.

I also agree that some folks seem a bit quick to jump to the conclusion that other people are agents.